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He’d set a large knife on the passenger seat, just in case. The man was driving from Michigan,
lured by the possibility of sex with two young children, and he knew the risks.

So when he arrived at the arranged destination, and when the officers ordered him out of his
vehicle, the man dived for his knife.

He later admitted that he’d brought it to kill himself, said Sgt. Dan Johnson of the Franklin
County sheriff’s office. Well aware that his fantasy might be interrupted by law-enforcement
officers, the man decided that it was worth it anyway. And he was willing to die if things went
wrong.

This strong compulsion is why, despite TV shows like NBC’s
To Catch a Predator — in which men showed up at homes expecting sexual encounters with
underage boys and girls and instead found a TV crew and law-enforcement officers waiting —
officials say they’ve seen no drop in the number of people using the Internet to arrange trysts
with minors.

To Catch a Predator did not deter them. Countless news reports of stings don’t stop them.
The very fact that the running joke of the Internet is that you don’t know who’s at the keyboard
doesn’t seem to faze them.

“We’re looking for logic, and it’s just not there with these people,” said Franklin County
Sheriff Zach Scott. “The urge to do this outweighs common sense.”

Johnson, who leads the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said that as
of July, the task force had made 58 arrests. Thirteen of those people were chatting online with
deputies posing as children and teenagers. In many cases, the only thing they have in common is
their sexual interest in children.

Over the years, “we’ve arrested rabbis and priests to people who are going to be cops to doctors
to lawyers to homeless people,” Scott said.

News reports from the past three years confirm this diversity: In one case, a 21-year-old Ohio
State student was charged after he posted a Craigslist ad looking for young boys “to play/fool
around” and arranged a meeting with a 14-year-old. In another, a 54-year-old Pickerington school
bus driver was caught allegedly seeking a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old. In a third case, a
72-year-old retired Licking County executive exchanged emails with a teen and was arrested when he
tried to get together with him.

Each time, the adult was actually chatting with a deputy.

Psychologists say the reasons predators pursue this online contact, despite the strong
possibility of getting caught, could be as diverse as they are.

“Some people are just willing to take risks,” said forensic psychologist Bob Stinson, who
practices in Westerville and Columbus. “But I don’t think that gets close to explaining all of it.”&
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Stinson said some predators simply aren’t able to delay their gratification, and so they’ll jump
at the chance to get what they want if it’s right in front of them. Even if it ends up being a cop
instead of a 12-year-old.

Court records show that they’re not oblivious to that possibility: A Delaware man who was
sentenced to nearly five years in prison for child pornography and importuning told “Hannah,” the
15-year-old he was chatting with, that she sounded “like a cop.” He agreed to meet her. He was
right.

Daniel Davis, another forensic psychologist, said Internet predators can suffer from poor social
skills or poor judgment, but they also can be narcissists who believe they’ll never get caught.
Some might even be excited further by the risk.

“This is a person who doesn’t have regard for society’s convention or laws,” Davis said.

For Johnson, it’s pretty simple why they continue. After they’re arrested, most adults claim
they’ve never done anything like this before, that the meeting was a bad idea, a fluke. Rarely does
that turn out to be true.

“The reason that they continue to do it — and this is the unfortunate part — is that there are
real children out there that are meeting adults online,” Johnson said. “Everybody that we
encounter, what they say is that this is the first time it’s ever happened. Chances are it’s not.
And that’s why they continue to do it.”